1. Field Of The Invention
The present invention relates to simple, manually operable mechanical registers. More specifically, the present invention relates to registers for monitoring consumption of food and for indicating when the cumulative consumption of food has reached a preset maximum or minimum limit.
In developed nations such as the United States, a significant percentage of the population eats excessive quantities of food, which often causes health problems. Many people become obese by consuming more calories of food than their bodies require for ideal weight maintenance. Similarly, many people develop elevated serum cholesterol levels by consuming excessive quantities of saturated fats in their diets. Other health problems are caused by excessive sodium or insufficient fiber in the diet. People are becoming better educated now about the health risks of poor diets, so many people are trying to improve their diets with the help of diet books and dieting products. Although the best diet books teach the principles of healthy diets for controlling weight or serum cholesterol, some people have trouble adhering to these diets because monitoring one's food consumption during the day can be relatively difficult. Counting calories or grams of fat consumed can be tedious, so a variety of products have been developed to help dieters monitor their food consumption. None of the other products is completely satisfactory, however.
2. Prior Art
In Thomann's U.S. Pat. No. 4,310,316, a diet control apparatus is described for monitoring consumption of foods in each of the primary food groups in order to insure that the user eats a balanced diet. This diet control means includes a plurality of symbolic food tokens with each such token bearing thereon a selected particular food group designation. These tokens are arranged into selected groups of tokens with each such group comprising the number of tokens prescribed for a particular designated meal. The dieter redeems a token (or tokens) for a specific food item (or items) within the particular food group designation as identified in an accompanying chart of food groups and food items, whereby the dieter can register his consumption of foods. At the end of the day all tokens are replaced into the same selected groups of tokens for use in the same manner during the following day.
Tilney's U.S. Pat. No. 4,828,498 discloses a food exchanges kit which is similar in intent to Thomann's diet control apparatus. This kit includes color coordinated food exchange cards to match foods of the primary food groups in a food exchange list. Self-adhesive labels printed with various meal designations are provided for affixing to the food exchange cards. Each card represents one food exchange and is color coordinated to match the colors of the various food groups found in the American Diabetic Association booklet entitled "Exchange Lists For Meal Planning". These cards are used by a dieter in a manner similar to the food tokens disclosed in Thomann's patent.
Basil's U.S. Pat. No. 4,832,603 discloses a daily food consumption planner which is also similar in intent to Thomann's diet control apparatus. This planner comprises a display panel and movable symbolic food tokens mounted upon this display panel. The display panel has seven food group display zones across the top of the panel and six meal display zones across the bottom. The meal display zones are each divided into three parallel columnar zones, one of which contains a list of all the food groups, the second of which is adapted to receive a numerical designation of the prescribed number of food units of each group to be consumed during each meal, and the third of which is adapted to receive movable tokens indicative of food choices and food portions within each food group. The movable tokens are mounted within each food group zone. Displayed on each of the movable tokens is a quantity and choice of food which constitutes one unit of food of a food group. The food tokens are movable from the food group zone to the third column of the meal zone, in the prescribed numbers displayed in the second column of the meal zone, so as to display the choice of selected foods for each meal and the quantities of those choices.
Although Thomann's patent, Tilney's patent, and Basil's patent all disclose inventions which help people monitor their consumption of foods in each basic food group in order to insure a reasonably balanced diet, none of these inventions is particularly well suited for accurately monitoring a specific constituent of foods such as saturated fat. Unlike these other inventions, the present invention is specially designed for monitoring such a food constituent, which is important for alleviating some health problems such as elevated serum cholesterol. Another disadvantage of these other inventions is that each of them comprises tokens or cards which can be lost relatively easily, whereas the present invention does not include components which can be lost easily. An advantage of the present invention, when compared to these prior art inventions, is that many people prefer using a simple rotary dial register to a system of cards or tokens.
Schafer's U.S. Pat. No. D.267,238 discloses an ornamental design for a carbohydrate-calorie recorder which comprises a dial for registering calorie or carbohydrate consumption. Unlike the present invention, Schafer's design does not include any structural provisions for incorporating the dial register into a diet guidebook; this dial register's form is not readily suitable, as is, for mounting it inside a diet guidebook. One advantage of the present invention is that the dial register is an integral part of a pocket-sized diet book so that the invention is both convenient and very informative. This book is a protective enclosure for the dial register.
Walden R. Williams wrote a pocketbook, copyrighted in 1935, entitled "Vest Pocket Calorie Counter" which incorporates a simple dial register for monitoring calorie consumption. This dial register comprises a thin rotary dial rotatably mounted, with a grommet, to the interior side of the book's front cover. The dial has an annular row of numerals printed on it in consecutive order near the dial's perimeter. The book's front cover has a small opening/window through which one of the dial's numerals is visible. The numeral which is visible in this window represents the dieter's cumulative calorie consumption during the day. The perimeter of this dial is serrated and a portion of it extends beyond the edge of the book's cover so that the dial can be manually rotated when the book is closed. In order to register the consumption of a particular quantity of calories, the dieter must mentally add this quantity to the quantity which is visible in the cover's window, and then the dieter rotates the dial until the new sum is visible through the window. The dieter must remember his daily calorie consumption limit so that he stops eating once this limit equals the numeral visible through the window. Unlike Williams' calorie counter, the present invention performs all calculations for the dieter and it indicates what his daily limit is.
Single axis rotary disk registers which have an annular row of numerals on the face of a manually operable rotary dial, such as Williams' calorie counter, typically cannot do successive subtraction operations which the present invention can do. The present invention can do successive subtraction because its annular row of consecutively ordered numerals is printed on a non-rotating component and because its dial has a scale pointer attached which rotates with the dial in close proximity to the annular row of numerals. The scale pointer indicates the result of each subtraction operation. The present invention's dial has an annular row of finger holes or dimples. A user can subtract a a numeral in the annular row of numerals by placing his index finger tip into the dial's hole or dimple which is nearest to that numeral and then rotating the dial until that hole or dimple is nearest to the numeral 0 in the annular row of numerals. The present invention includes a stationary finger stop operatively associated with the dial for blocking the rotary movement of the user's index finger tip in that hole or dimple once that hole or dimple is nearest to the numeral 0. This feature prevents the user from rotating the dial too far during a subtraction operation. A preferred embodiment of the present invention includes a movable peg which can be mounted adjacent to any one of the numerals in the annular row of numerals, for indicating the user's prescribed daily cummulative limit of some food constituent, such as saturated fat. Thus, the user does not need to memorize this limit. The unique configuration of the present invention's components allows it to perform functions which other simple, single axis disk registers cannot perform.
Nutting and Stubbmann's U.S. Pat. No. 3,212,708 discloses a digital input manually operable toy computer with a rotary dial, a finger stop, a casing, an annular row of numerals around the dial, a two digit mechanical display, and a multiple component mechanism for mechanically coupling the display to the rotary dial such that this apparatus can perform addition and subtraction operations. This multiple component mechanism, the dial, and two digit display together constitute a set of moving parts in a configuration which is much more complex than the present invention's structure. The present invention's unique configuration of components can perform addition or subtraction with fewer moving parts than prior art mechanical calulators, such as Nutting and Stubbmann's toy computer, so the present invention is less expensive to manufacture.